Counterparts
by Amy Renee
Summary: Two conversations in two hospitals between two brothers.


_Counterparts_

* * *

CHAPTER 1

This scene takes place during the Season 4 finale, after Michael hands over Scylla and before they sign the papers provided by Kellerman to exhaunerate them.

* * *

His brother' s eyes were closed when he first stepped into his hospital room, but they opened and he turned his head to look at him. "Hey," he said.

"Hey," Michael replied, taking a couple of steps into the room. Lincoln pushed himself more upright, wincing and placing an arm across his middle. Michael felt some pain of his own as he saw this.

"How are you feeling?"

"I'll live. What about you?" Lincoln gestured towards Michael's left shoulder, now in a sling.

"I'm fine. Didn't get anything important." Lincoln continued to look at him. "Sara said you talked with her. Thanked her."

"She saved you," Lincoln stated. Michael nodded. He clearly heard the gratefulness behind the words.

"So she's really dead this time?"

Christina.

The name that had conjured up memories of happiness, love and family now had a bitter and hateful ring to it. He resented it. He resented _her_.

"Yes," Michael replied straightly. Lincoln seemed to nod in approval, but there was something defeated in the gesture. It was silent for a moment until Michael spoke again.

"I'm sorry, Linc."

His brother's expression changed to confusion, "For what?"

"I had to save both of you."

"I know," Lincoln assures him matter-of-factly.

"I almost lost you." Michael kept seeing the look on his brother's face at the shipyard. It had been tired, resigned in acceptance that he wasn't going to be saved. Michael averts his eyes. Lincoln knows that look and he knows that low regretful tone.

"I'm still here, Michael. Because of you." The younger met his solid gaze. Lincoln didn't just mean after Christina, but Fox River too. Still, he didn't feel justified. "Even after I told you to let me go." Not an accusation, but almost a regret of his own. Michael notices this, brows furrowing as he hardens his gaze at his brother.

"That's _never_ an option."

"It is. You just never choose it."

"Of course I don't." He can't completely help the incredulous way the words come out. He thought his brother understood by now, but new wounds sometimes fester despite preventative measures.

"If you did, it would be alright."

It hurt to hear. How could his brother think that was alright?

"If that was true, I never would have put myself in Fox River." He said it with all the conviction he could, willing his brother to believe it, but Lincoln's expression didn't change. "C'mon, Linc. You know that." He all but pleaded this time. Lincoln continued to look down. After a moment he spoke. His tone was so resigned that Michael's heart sank.

"Everything we knew was a lie. It wasn't real. Our family..."

Michael felt something spark inside. "No," he interjected, " _She_ wasn't real. _We_ are." Michael studied his brother. "Tell me different," he challenged.

Lincoln didn't say anything. He wouldn't argue that, but he looked away, and what Michael could see in his eyes increased his worry. Lincoln's eyes looked doubtful and they shimmered with a deep hurt that Michael had never seen in them before.

Lincoln had never cried, not even when their mom had died (or so they thought she had.) He had always undervalued himself. Something that bothered Michael to no end, but this ran deeper than that. He could imagine what Christina had said to him for the duration of time she had Lincoln in her clutches. Her own words to him were still razor sharp in his memory. While he had never relished the idea of killing another human being, he couldn't help but feel a little less remorse in Christina s demise.

He pushed thoughts of her aside. This was about Lincoln- his brother, no matter what- and he wouldn't let him feel alone like this. He sat in the chair next to the bed. Lincoln's head was still hung low. Michael settled his hand on his arm.

"It's still you and me. It always has been, and I meant it before: It doesn't change anything. Not a damn thing, big brother."

Lincoln looked at him then. He saw the absoluteness in Michael's eyes, felt it in the touch of his hand on his forearm, and had never been more grateful, not even when he had first seen Michael at Fox River declaring he would get him out.

What had been there in Lincoln's eyes abated almost as quickly as it had appeared. He patted Michael's arm in return, fingers brushing his brother's as he withdrew.

"You and me," he affirmed, eyes lightening and the corner of his mouth tugging upward slightly.

"I told you, you're stuck with me," Michael said more light-heartedly.

Lincoln huffed a laugh. His relief was clear and Michael felt his chest loosen. They sat quietly, Michael's hand lingering on his brother's arm for a moment longer, neither wanting to break the connection.

"So Kellerman, huh?" Lincoln inquired.

"Yeah."

"I'm still trying to process it."

"Me too."

"It's almost too much. Think it's really for real this time?" Michael realizes Lincoln isn't looking at him, but to him. There's a distrustful hopefulness in his eyes.

Michael has asked himself that same question repeatedly. They had all come so far, lost so much, only to be let down time and time again. Hope was indeed a dangerous thing. He knew his brother couldn't bear another let down. Hell, neither could he, but this time it actually felt like it might be alright. His brother didn't need maybes, but he didn't need false hopes either.

"Yeah. I do." This time _he_ even believes it. His older brother looks at him, admiration and love in his eyes. "It's going to be alright now, Linc," he states confidently. Lincoln looks relieved, and for now, that's enough.

* * *

CHAPTER 2

I had this scene pop in my head before knowing about "The Final Break" and how Michael actually "dies." Normally I scrap ideas if they end up not matching what really happens in the show. (I like to keep things at least fairly true to the show, and I don't really care for AU's.) However, this one just kind of stuck, so alas, here it is. Hope you still like it.

* * *

He felt scared, nervous. He knew he shouldn't. It was just Michael. Still, his heart pounded steadily against his ribs and in his ears. He felt a cold sweat start to take hold and had to steel himself against it. It was Michael. Just his brother. One of the few people he loved most in the whole world. The person who had given up his life, become a fugitive to save him and uncover the truth. He took a breath, released it and opened the door.

Lincoln stepped into the room. The lights were off- the harsh florescence made his brother's headaches worse. The curtains were open, but the sun was past where it might have shone light into the room to brighten it. The dimness gave the room even more of a foreign and foreboding feel.

His brother lay motionless in the hospital bed, head turned away, and for a moment, Lincoln's breath caught. Then Michael turned his head towards him and smiled, "Hey, Linc," he said.

Lincoln's chest loosened. "Hey, bro."

He stepped closer. Despite the dimness, Michael was pale, the dark circles under his eyes were made worse by the shadows cast about the room. Lincoln looked down.

Michael could sense the weight settling heavier on his big brother. He had for a while. He could feel it radiating off of him now. He could see it in the way he carried himself and in his eyes. Probably why Lincoln couldn't bring himself to let him look. He was afraid Michael would see what he already knew, solidifying it.

"We've been here before, haven't we," Lincoln said unquestioningly. One brother facing death. "I just wish I could do for you what you did for me." His tone is low and regretful.

"You can't, Linc." Michael says it sensitively but realistically. His brother needed to accept this, even though he knew he wouldn't. Still, he hoped.

Lincoln scrubs a hand down his face, frustrated, angry with the reality of it. "Yeah," and he knows it's the truth. He hates knowing it. "I just keep thinking it can't end like this. I mean, after everything... We just got our lives back, man."

"You still have yours," Michael reminds him, "And L.J. and Sophia."

Lincoln sighs. That's just not good enough right now, like a puzzle with just one piece missing, the piece that completes the whole picture. "You should be here with us." It's not overtly noticeable, but Lincoln's voice has taken on a shaken quality. He begins to pace. Michael looks away. He wants nothing more than to be here, to be with his brother, start a life with Sara and their son.

"You said I was stuck with you," Lincoln says into the room softly. Michael hears how hard this is on him. This will be the hardest thing his brother has been through. It will be harder than when he was bound for the chair, than when L.J. was held captive under the threat of death, even harder than the awful reunion with their mother. Those situations all turned out okay. There was only one outcome here. Yet Michael wanted Lincoln to believe this could be okay someday too. Truthfully, so did he.

"It's not over, Linc."

He seems not to hear him. "What am I supposed to do without you?" the elder questioned earnestly.

Michael doesn't even have to think of an answer.

"Live."

Lincoln looks back to him, his expression one that anyone else would take for irritation, but Michael knows better. He goes on:

"You're free. You have your life back. Live it; Be happy." He smirks a little, "Find some nice boring 9 to 5, watch LJ grow up, be a grandpa."

Lincoln's eyes flash with wet sorrow. All things that Michael wouldn't experience himself.

Michael intentionally echoes some of Lincoln's own words: "Let me go out knowing you are going to be alright. That's what you do for me."

Lincoln draws his brows together. Of course he would ask that of him, the one thing he couldn't do: Be alright losing his brother. He takes it in, knows he should give Michael the one thing he's asking for, the last thing he'd ever ask for, but it's too much. He shakes his head.

"I can't..." he starts to say but stops. "There's gotta be a way."

Michael lets out a breath. He can't watch his brother beat himself up. He'd been doing it to himself his whole life, and to think it would get worse after he was gone was too much. It was all just too much.

Lincoln continued, grasping. It was all he could do. "The Company had advances, maybe we..."

"Linc, please don't make this harder."

The utter brokenness in his brother's voice makes him look up. Michael's welling eyes meet his own and he has to look away.

"I'm sorry," Lincoln says quietly. "Michael I'm sorry." This time he does meet his eyes.

 _'Sorry for upsetting you, for not being there when we were younger, for sacrificing everything, that this is happening and there's nothing I can do to stop it'_ is in their depths.

He rubs a hand over his shaved hair, pulls the chair from by Michael's bed closer and takes a seat. His younger brother watches him, a couple of tears overflowing and escaping down his cheeks. Lincoln's own vision starts to blur again and he tries to blink it back. He reaches out and brushes one of Michael's tears away with his thumb. The gesture is so heartfelt that Michael has to close his eyes against a fresh burning in them and swallow back the lump in his throat.

"Are you scared?" Lincoln asks.

Michael remembers when he had most recently asked him the same thing at Sona. It might seem an insensitive thing to ask to anyone else, but it was Lincoln's way of telling him he wasn't alone.

When they were kids, after their mom was gone, Michael would have nightmares. He'd wake up in different homes, never sure of where he was at first. He dealt with them for a while on his own, but he missed the way things were and was becoming more uncertain of what they would be. It finally got to be too much and he woke Lincoln in the middle of the night one night.

"What is it?" Lincoln had asked him. Michael looked uncertain and conflicted, like he wanted to tell him something but was afraid to.

Michael rarely asked anyone for help or comfort, and when he did, it was from his older brother. Lincoln had never minded providing him with that. In the months following their mother's death, the kid just kind of shut off to everything, including Lincoln. It bothered the older brother, but he would still do what he could to show his little brother he was still here, like leaving the cranes. Years later, he would think he should have done more, like actually be there like he used to be.

But Lincoln could still read his brother. He had pulled back the covers on his bed and moved over, arm outstretched. After a few heartbeats, Michael had crawled in. They both settled on their backs, side by side, Lincoln's arm around Michael's shoulders. He pulled the covers over them both. A few more heartbeats.

"Are you scared?" Lincoln's voice questioned in the dark. Michael inched a little closer to him, seeking warmth, strength and comfort: An affirmation. Lincoln tightened his arm around him: _I'm here_.

Michael turns back now to look at him, once again silently telling him what he won't- or can't- in words. Lincoln takes Michael s hand, interlocking it in his own. Michael looks down with the slightest bit of warm surprise, and then curls his fingers around his brother's, taking solace in the contact. They sit silently for a while not looking at one another, each seemingly lost in his thoughts but really trying not to think, just simply to be. To be there in that moment, trying not to let his thoughts wander to how it won t last, because soon, it will be gone forever.

As Lincoln stands to leave, he leans forward and wraps his arms around Michael's shoulders. "I'll be back tomorrow, little brother."

Michael returns the hug, feeling both more happy and more despairingly than before. Lincoln lingers a moment before breaking the contact. He turns back as he reaches the doorway. He doesn't know the right things to say, but they've never seemed to need words when it really came down to it. A hundred things and three decades of love pass silently between them. Lincoln offers a smile and Michael returns that too through brimming beaming eyes.

"See you later," Lincoln says.

But he doesn't.

That night Michael suffers a fatal aneurysm. Lincoln lets the phone drop, no longer hearing or caring about the voice on the other end telling him his brother has died. He follows the phone down as he sinks unbelieving to the floor. He begins to sob. All his mind's eye can see is his brother smiling back at him through tearful eyes.

If he could form a cognitive thought at the moment, it would be how he isn't alright. Nothing about this is alright at all.

* * *

 _Counterpart: One of two parts that fit, complete or complement one another._


End file.
